Ms Rachel Cassen:

We persistently underfunded inclusive community-based supports. We offer little or no funding to DPOs and family-led organisations like ourselves that support families to pursue an inclusive life. It would be great for those organisations to have new roles, such as inclusion facilitators. Inclusion is an art, not a science, and the further you come away from the inclusive life path, the harder it is to come out of segregation, having been othered.

On the question on how we set up personal budgets in a robust, sustainable way, we need a particular base for personalised budgets, as Finian McGrath had in his vision when he set up the task force for personal budgets. We need a fully resourced staff and maybe a building or office spaces. We need to start advertising on the radio and television what is available to people. We need to be really positive, sharing stories. Stories are really powerful. We have many stories of young people. We work only with children and young adults, so that is why I am always talking about them. They have achieved so much with a small parcel of money that they self-direct. Those are my recommendations.